As always, a huge thank-you to everyone who's following this story.
Part Eleven – The Road
The morning was crisp and bright, the sky already cerulean above the trees. Tayna leaned back against the edge of the casement, her gaze on the swaying branches and her thoughts in useless bits and pieces.
She heard the door open and Edwin said, "Are you busy?"
"I'm counting the trees."
"So, no, then?"
"No." She turned, smiling when she saw him poised in the doorframe, clad in red. "Very impressive."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "I do not usually stumble into a storm of compliments in your presence."
"One compliment. You want to hear something that will really annoy you?"
Flatly he said, "Oh, yes. In fact I was hoping for such an occasion to rear its head. Regale me all the swifter."
She grinned. "We're leaving. Tomorrow."
"And how is that supposed to annoy me? As if I am going to miss this place. (And the elves keep staring. Watching and asking after her as if she was the only one who had the misfortune to visit her father's realm.)"
"And before we leave," she said, cutting across him. "The queen wishes to see me."
"Dare I ask why? Or is it yet another ploy to convince herself that her city did not come inches from ruination at the hands of an elven madman?"
"Probably. I'll just be there for the wine. If there is any."
She watched as he sat beside her, studiously arranging the fall of his robes over his knees. She found herself eying the neat motion of his hands, gleaming with rings and slender.
"And the others?" he asked.
"Well, if they want to come, they can. If they don't, I'll wish them well. Imoen's staying with us, so's Jaheira."
"Wonderful," he muttered sourly. "And what about the knight?"
Tayna laughed. "Just what is it with you and Anomen?"
"He's a knight," the wizard answered disdainfully. "He fully and unequivocally believes that the rest of the world needs – no, deserves – to know about the glorious deeds his order has achieved through a thinly-hidden veil of domination that would alter irrevocably all it comes into contact with. And all for the good of his god."
"Mmm. And of course the Red Wizards are known for their open-mindedness and willingness to work well with others."
Edwin snorted. "Of course we are not. I, however, have never pretended anything otherwise."
"You'd miss him if you got stuck in a fight and ended up flattened because he wasn't there to soak up punishment."
"No, I would not, since I have your Rashemi idiot for that."
Tayna groaned. "Just stop."
"I have not killed him, set fire to him, otherwise plotted his demise or even wished significant harm upon him, fool that he is. (Not lately, in any case, that she knows of.)"
"Yes, because that's how normal people behave around their friends. Companions. Other people that they're forced to spend time with. Whatever strange way you define things."
"Well. If you will insist upon surrounding yourself with a veritable menagerie of disparate individuals."
"Has its benefits on occasion," she told him impishly.
She leaned into his shoulder, pushing until he gave in, until he had his back to the flat of the wall. Ignoring his perturbed glance, she sat across his lap, aware of the cool glass on one side and the familiar scent of him under her, parchment and ink and soap.
He sighed, his breath stirring her hair. "And how am I meant to get anything worthwhile done with you sitting on me?"
"That's the point. You're not. And besides, define worthwhile."
He grunted something, one hand trailing down to the small of her back. She plucked at the ties of his robes until she had them loosened. After she parted the heavy red folds of fabric, she toyed with his belt, aware of how his breathing changed, quickening. "Why do you have to wear so many layers?"
"Habit," Edwin answered drily.
Deliberately teasing, she ran her hands up under the hem of his shirt, grinning when he shivered. Retaliating, he hauled her closer, so that her knees bumped the edge of the casement. When he sat up, she moved too quickly in response and he tried to catch her, his hands clamping hard over her hips. Leaning forward, she captured his mouth with hers, the kiss bruising and fierce. Rolling off him, she pulled him away from the windowseat after her, laughing when he pushed her against the wall. She shoved his robes off his shoulders, her breath stolen when he had her breeches unlaced and one hand on her, stroking. She shuddered, burying her head against his chest before she muttered, "You keep doing that, you're going to have to hold me up."
Somewhere between the wall and the bed they lost the rest of their clothes, Tayna dropping onto the sheets first. She tugged him down after her, his slim frame covering hers before he slid down, lifting one of her legs up over his shoulder. Her back arching, she reached for his hair, catching thick silken handfuls.
Edwin lifted his head, his expression mildly resigned. "If you do not stop pulling my hair, I will stop what I am doing."
She gasped out a laugh and eased her grip on his hair. "Sorry. Got carried away."
"Or better, I will continue what I am doing to a certain, incredibly frustrating point, and then I will get up and walk out."
Tayna snorted. "You'll get up and walk out. Stark naked. The elves will love seeing that."
"You know what I mean."
"I do have a working pair of hands of my own, you know."
His teeth scraped the inside of her thigh, gently teasing. "Yes, yes. Be quiet."
Afterwards – after she had hauled him properly on top of her so that they could surge together, at first desperate and later sated and slow – she curled on her side and watched him, sprawled indolently beside her, his eyes hooded and dark.
"Tell me," Edwin said. "In the grove, the words – your words – you said the storm approaches."
"Yes, it does." Idly she scooped up one of his hands, finding the smooth inside of his palm, and then his pulse, still uneven. "But, you know, I think it always has been. Approaching. Or, well, you know what I mean." She glanced back up in time to find him regarding her oddly. "What?"
"Nothing," he retorted. He kissed her, his mouth meeting hers, the slow patient softness of it surprising her.
The morning rolled on, the sunlight crawling across the rumpled mess they had made of the sheets. She told him about the time she had fallen asleep in one of the libraries at Candlekeep, falling off the table she had ensconced herself on when Ulraunt caught her. She smacked Edwin's shoulder when he rolled his eyes at her and muttered something about the predictable antics of uncultured idiots.
Not quite looking at her, he said, "When I was younger – very much younger, I hasten to add – I could not retain control upon a fire spell."
Tayna winced. "Lose your eyebrows?"
"No, my shirt was the first real casualty, as I recall," he added drily. "Along with the side of a table, my instructor's inkwell, two of his scrolls and, well, most of his robes."
She laughed before she could help it. "So you've been causing chaos all your life, I see."
"Yes, yes. (I'd like to see her wrestle with, learn and master with extreme finesse the trials of elemental magic.)"
"So what happened the first time you tried to conjure a horde of goblins or something?"
"Oh, they by comparison are easy to direct. Not unlike engaging conversation with the rest of your companions, shall we say."
"Very funny." She turned his hand over again, tracing the jeweled bands of his rings. "What happened?"
"What do you mean?"
"After you charcoaled the table."
"I learned very fast to never again lose control of any spell."
She hesitated. "And when you say you were very young," she said.
"Yes."
"I'm sorry."
He blinked, frowning as if he could not quite sort through her words. "Why? It is the only way Thay survives as it should."
"I suppose."
"There is nothing to suppose about it," Edwin said haughtily.
"Yes, I get it."
After glaring at him, she settled herself against the crook of his shoulder. Her thoughts scattered uselessly, full of the grove and the prickling uncertainty that had lodged itself under her skin, relentless.
"Where are you?"
Tayna flinched, abruptly aware that he had one hand buried in her hair, cupped over the back of her neck. "The grove," she answered without thinking.
"Go on."
"Betrayal," she said, her lips moving against his collarbone. "Bhaal's servant. Just – why can't things like that be easier?"
"Are you actually demanding that a prophecy pertaining to your dead sire should be anything other than complicated, circular, enigmatic at best and deliberately misleading at worst?"
"Yes, I am," she said, and prodded his ribs. "Go ahead and laugh. You're just along for the ride, after all."
The corner of his mouth shifted. "I beg to differ. I would hazard that lately it is, in fact, you who has been along for the –"
"Oh, that was awful." Grinning, she rolled on top of him, pinioning him, both hands flat on his chest.
He shifted under her, scowling when she leaned into him, keeping him trapped. "Really. That manner of criticism from you?"
"I could find you a book. Poetry, perhaps."
"As if you would be capable of identifying worthwhile poetry."
"Hey, I happen to know a lot of tavern songs," she told him archly.
"Yes, and you happen to sing them far too often."
"I haven't sung anything around you for weeks."
Blandly, he responded, "Yes, that is indeed exactly what I meant."
Tayna lifted one hand to thump him but he moved first, pushing at her other arm until she toppled across him, her laughter muffled against his shoulder.
"You have crumpled my clothes."
Tayna looked up from where she was poised over the spread of her belongings, old shirts and a whetstone, a book and that old battered comb she still carted around. She blinked at Edwin, who was standing officiously over his own not-quite-finished pack, and responded, "That's just one of your shirts. You have others, as I recall. Give it a shake, it'll be fine."
"For your barbarian preferences, perhaps."
"Did you want me to summon a seamstress? Have her create a new one for you? Jewels at the cuffs and the collar and the laces altogether not fraying? Will black do or is red utterly required?"
Edwin glared. "Very funny."
Tayna perched on the end of the bed, aware of the strange familiarity of it, the sense of preparing to leave. How many times, she wondered, had she done this, or fragments of this, gathering herself and whatever was left and moving on, elsewhere, somewhere. Since Candlekeep, and since that night, the night that had drawn her and Imoen out and into the snare of Gorion's death.
How many times had they all done it, she thought abruptly.
Shaking herself out of her thoughts, she said, "The queen has kindly given us all the food we can carry. Can you think of anything I might've forgotten to ask for?"
"Wit, charm, attention to detail and the ability to sleep without snoring?"
"Given how deeply it turns out you can sleep, I'm impressed that you noticed even once if I was snoring." She nudged him before handing over the wrapped weight of a coinpurse. "Your share of the gold."
His eyebrows arched. "The queen and her advisers put a price on the saving of their city, did they? Interesting."
"I'd call it less payment and more a bribe for going away," she said drily.
"Yes." He reached past her for the other coinpurse, leaning against her spare set of breeches.
"Hey, I worked for that," she protested.
"As did I. I was there in your father's realm as well, if you care to recall."
She squinted up at him. "You moped, moaned and complained the whole time."
"Oh, of course, because your behavior while there was perfectly normal. (Her eyes glowing, her voice not there, and who knows what was going on inside her head.)"
"I'm a Child of Bhaal," she told him wryly. "Remember?"
"And that is a reason, not an excuse for poor behavior."
"Oh, you –" Biting down on her own words, she lunged up for the coinpurse. When he hoisted it higher, she grabbed his elbow and yanked. Edwin staggered off-balance, swearing when she tugged the coinpurse out of his hand. Clumsily he retaliated, but she spun him back against the wall as fast.
"Sure you don't want to take me up on that offer of sword-drill?"
Edwin narrowed his eyes. "No. Not at all. And you can –"
She grabbed his collar and pulled him down, swallowing his voice when she kissed him. For long moments he gave in, one of his hands locking over the back of her neck. When his other arm relaxed, she swiped the coinpurse and grinned at him.
Halfway to smiling, he said, "You conniving, terrible creature."
From behind them, Imoen said, "You know, I'm honestly not sure if you're fighting or playing. But whichever it is, I don't need to see anymore."
Turning, Tayna laughed. She discovered her sister standing in the open doorway, arms folded and the bright mop of her hair combed back from her face.
"Next time, knock," Tayna suggested.
"Door was open. Well, half-open."
"Not the point. All sorted?"
Imoen nodded. "Think so. It's going to feel odd, don't you think?"
"Yes, it will." She shrugged. "I think I've been too used to knowing exactly where we need to go. What we need to do."
"With your weighty destiny, I imagine we will take no more than a single step or three outside this city before some calamity or other befalls us," Edwin remarked, his voice flat.
Imoen elbowed him and said, "You know, I'm pretty sure a few tumbles in the hay are meant to lighten up anyone's mood. Even yours."
"There was no hay involved," Edwin grated.
"I can never tell when you're trying to be funny," Imoen responded brightly. "Or when it just happens by accident."
"Enough. (Worse than her sister, this one. Never knowing when to shut her mouth)."
"Could be even worse. I could give you a lecture on how I'll have your head on a pike if you do anything to my sister that she doesn't want done to her."
"Great gods above, you insufferable brat, will you stop before I enspell you silent?"
"Please don't kill each other," Tayna said mildly. "I really don't want to spend the rest of the morning cleaning up blood."
Imoen laughed, already halfway back to the door. "I'll find you later?"
"Of course. Im?"
"Yes?"
"Close the door?"
"Only because I'm so nice."
After the door clicked shut on Imoen's heels, Tayna jammed her spare tunic into her pack. "Why is it they never quite seem to fit the same way they did last time?"
"A mystery unknown and never to be unraveled, unlocked or simply discovered," Edwin said wryly.
"Good to know it's not just me."
Surrendering, she flipped the pack closed. Sidelong, she watched the elegant motions of his hands as he finished up with his own belongings, carefully folding parchment into fastidiously matching squares.
"You know what's going to be really strange?"
"I cannot possibly guess. Unless it involves Irenicus clawing his way out of the hells to wreak some poorly-attempted revenge. That or whatever it is that your sister claims is in fact food, all evidence to the contrary aside considering her attempts at cooking."
"Keep that up and you can enjoy yourself on lonely breakfast duty for the next few days. And actually I meant sleeping outside."
"So?"
"So," she said, and guided him until he was sitting on the end of the bed. As teasingly she pushed his knees apart so she could stand between them. She looked at him, finding his gaze on her and as hungry as she suspected her own was. "I don't know about you, but it's never quite as comfortable as sleeping inside. Better blankets. More room."
He cupped his hands over her hips, drawing her closer. "Well. Perhaps on occasion you do have ideas that are not entirely dreadful."
The gardens were lush, pale pathways circling through high stands of trees. Tayna paused, listening to the sway of the branches. She shook herself before she kept going, through the last courtyard and to the high doors. She nodded to the guards, her hands loose at her sides. After they motioned her inside, she stepped into the throne room, the cool gloom sliced by the light flooding through the high lancet windows. As expected, she saw Queen Ellesime first, poised and still, the heavy ropes of her hair swept back with jewel-tipped pins.
Tayna halted in front of the dais, abruptly aware of the silence that rippled through the courtiers, of how they were looking at her. Some of them she vaguely remembered, elven warriors she had seen amid the flames fighting the drow, or the mages who had flung up shimmering walls in desperate ferocious effort to shield the city.
Ellesime inclined her head. "Tayna."
Teeth gritted, she responded, "Your Majesty."
"You are prepared?"
"Yes, your Majesty. I only wished to offer my thanks. For your hospitality and your generosity these past days."
"Of course."
How had it been, how different, Tayna wondered, all those long years ago, when Irenicus had been Joneleth, and when he had been elven, and beloved.
Before he had stepped among the branches of the Tree.
Before his banishment.
The queen was speaking again, she realized, and somehow she raised her head, listening. Something about thanks, and a promise that safe haven would always be offered, should her path ever take her back through the elven forests. She waited until she heard herself responding, turning away a heartbeat later.
Outside she paused, breathing in the scent of the morning, one hand clamping hard over her sword hilt. She wanted to be away, she realized, suddenly and fiercely she wanted the white halls of Suldenessellar behind her, masked by the green stands of the trees.
The walk through the city's twisting streets calmed the clamour of her pulse. At the gates she discovered the others, clad for traveling.
"You're alright?" Jaheira asked.
She nodded. "I'll be alright. Ready?"
"Always."
The path wound out of the city, curving through the whispering forest. On both sides the trees closed in, heavy dark branches almost knotting overhead. The day wore on slowly and without incident, the trail leading to the shivering rush of a river, and then further, past slanting rocks and through glades dense with ferns. The sky stayed clear and crisp, the rich scent of loam underfoot.
The sun was halfway behind the trees by the time she called a halt, Imoen grumbling something about tyrannical marching orders in response. Smiling, Tayna busied herself with her pack, aware of the others moving around her, Jaheira already halfway to having a fire built, and Edwin flatly rejecting third watch when Anomen guilelessly asked. Later, over a half-finished bowl of stew, she sat beside Jaheira and listened to the simple peace of the night.
"You look better," Jaheira said gently.
"I feel better," she admitted. "We stayed too long, I think."
"I understand."
"I just didn't, well. I was –"
"Distracted?" Jaheira said. "Preoccupied? Entranced?"
She flicked Jaheira's knee. Genially she added, "We walk the branches of the tree of Suldenessellar, kill Irenicus, go to another realm, come back still breathing, and this is what you and Imoen make fun of me for?"
Jaheira smiled, and the motion of it lightened the shadows around her eyes. "Well, yes."
"Thanks." Tayna stared at the fire, at the cloud of sparks that billowed when Minsc tipped one of the cut branches over. "Can I ask something that's far more normal? Well, normal for us."
"Of course."
"Do you know when we'll cross into Tethyr?"
"Roughly," Jaheira allowed. "I'll let you know when we start closing on the trade roads. What are you expecting?"
"I don't know. I'm thinking we should take it steady and careful."
"I agree. Whether or not news of Bodhi's death and then her brother's here has spread this far and, well. The words you brought from the grove."
Tayna sighed. "I think I preferred it when we were stumbling around Athkatla being attacked by people who just wanted our coin. When they didn't care whose blood I was carrying around."
Firmly, Jaheira caught the back of her wrist. "Whichever way, I will be with you. We will discover the truth of these words. The truth of whatever it was that waited for you in the grove."
"Thank you." The words slipped out almost silently, relieved. "For understanding."
The moon hung above the grey shapes of the trees, the branches soughing in the wind. Almost silently, Tayna padded across the clearing and past the glowing embers of the fire. She noticed Jaheira on watch, the druid twisting around to glance at her. Tayna shrugged back at her and grinned when she hid a smile before turning back to survey the blank gloom of the forest. A few nimble movements teased the tent flaps open. She slithered in further, carefully soundless. She could hear Edwin breathing, even and unhurried. She was inches closer when marigold flames flared and sent the shadows scattering.
"You idiot," the wizard hissed. He clenched his fingers and the flames dipped. "I was about to kill you."
"That's all light and no heat," she pointed out, and saw him scowl in response. "And besides, who else did you think it was going to be?"
"Why have you accosted me?"
"It's cold in my tent. And Imoen's snoring."
"And?"
"Fine. Make me work at it. Can I sleep with you?"
Edwin sighed resignedly and flipped his blankets down, the last wisp of the spell fading. Before he could reconsider, she scurried in beside him. He was delightfully warm, and when she welded herself to his side, he shifted, gathering her closer.
"Edwin?"
"Be quiet or it will be all heat and no light this time."
She grinned and glided one hand under his shirt and down to his waistband. He grumbled something and grabbed her hand. The tempo of his breathing quickened, and he guided her lower. She felt his breath on her lips before he kissed her, blindly seeking.
"Can you actually muster enough sensibility to keep yourself quiet?"
Tayna laughed. "You sound terribly serious. And yes, I promise I'll try."
Somehow they worked most of her clothes off and wrestled with his breeches. She was aware of him above her, almost entirely swallowed by the shadows. After her knee ended up in his ribs and he kept leaning against the trailing end of her braid – the first time she winced and the second, she just slapped his shoulder lightly – she said, "This is trickier than I thought it would be. Try again?"
His laughter answered her, low and short. "Why not? Unless of course you have some other startlingly good plan than fumbling around in the dark?"
"Says the deliberately unhelpful wizard," she muttered. "I mean, of course, fumbling around in the dark was exactly what I was going to suggest. Can't you just cast a light spell? Or at least cast one long enough for me to find a lantern in here?"
"Oh, and alert every single one of your companions to just exactly what we are doing?"
She sighed. "Edwin, it's the middle of the night. And I don't think they'll care, regardless."
He muttered something, and the shadows shifted, rippling around the tiny point of light he had called up. Before he could say anything else, she dragged him down beside her. The light fluttered, small and floating, limning the blankets and the ends of the wizard's hair when he leaned over her. Teasingly he traced the contours of her body until she buried her face against his shoulder. Later she explored him as tortuously slowly, lingering over the jut of his hips. One of his hands dug sharply into her hair and she glanced up in time to see that he had the back of his other arm pressed over his mouth, stifling himself.
Afterwards, the light spell faded, the shadows rushing back. Tayna burrowed back against him, vaguely aware of how oddly usual it seemed, how already she knew that they fit better together if he curled himself around her, his chest against her back.
"Edwin?"
"Mmm?"
"I want to say something, and I want you to keep your opinion to yourself until I've finished."
He sighed against her hair. "Go on. I am, it seems, your captive audience. (Hardly worth stopping her in any case, foolish chattering creature.)"
"I'm wondering if my – if Gorion knew how far it would go."
"What do you think?"
"I don't know," she admitted uselessly. "There was so much he didn't tell us. Couldn't tell us, I guess. But looking back, gods. I don't want to say it seems obvious because that just makes me seem like an idiot."
"A not entirely unusual turn of events."
She elbowed him. "Didn't I say to keep your opinion to yourself?"
"What else?"
"What?"
"Right now, you are the opposite of relaxed."
She forced her shoulders to slacken slightly. Briefly she wondered at how the darkness made this easier, soft words blurred all the more by the night. "Some days – sometimes – I miss him. But then, I wonder if I'm missing more what I thought he was. Does that make sense?"
"Yes," Edwin said quietly. "In a way."
"And then I start wondering who my mother was."
He shifted, idly flicking her braid over her shoulder. "Your foster father told you, as I recall."
"Well. He wrote that she'd died giving birth to me, and that he'd known her briefly."
"But?"
She sighed. "But now I wonder how much of that was true. Which makes me feel terrible."
"Why? It seems quite likely that he would have fabricated some if not all of your past, even alongside the confirmation of your heritage."
"Yes, because learning that my mother might have been a deathstalker or something equally cheerful would have really made that day all the more memorable."
"She may have been. She as likely may have been a priestess, or as likely was neither of those things. She was forced or she went willingly to your father. Would it help or in any way illuminate your future if you knew which if any of these possibilities even touched upon the truth?"
"We wouldn't find the truth," she retorted, and felt the small movement of him smiling against the back of her neck. "Not all of it, anyway. Part of it would do as a start. And besides, didn't you once say to me curiosity is the best way to start digging things up about your enemies?"
He snorted. "Not with those words. And not quite in the foolhardy thoughtless way you careen about the landscape."
"You know what I mean."
"Your definition of curiosity," he added, "Tends to lead us into beholder nests. And werewolf lairs. And tunnels full of driders. Oh, and that huge cave that reeked of trolls from leagues away, and unsurprisingly in fact turned out to be full of trolls."
Archly she said, "You'd get bored without me."
"Well," he said, and tightened his arm around her waist. "Probably."
The road wound through the forest, the high curling trees incessantly dripping after the morning brought rain, pattering heavy and chill through dipping green leaves. Long days of brisk marching took them past low hills, uneven with grey outcrops and scrubby with wind-raked brush. The easy familiarity of it startled Tayna, how simply they fell back into it, into the rhythm of conversation and arguments and the banality of how to fill days spent on foot. Most evenings she sparred with Minsc or Anomen – one grey, drizzling evening she begged exhaustion, but the ranger hauled her genially to her feet anyway – before tempting her sister into cards.
Eventually the trees fell behind, the trail running uneven across rolling open plains. The wind here was sharp, freighted with the dry scent of bare rock and rattling grass. Three times they passed through small villages, slanting buildings clustered around the wheel-rutted road. More than once Tayna fielded brusque queries about where they had come from, where they planned on heading, softened when she assured that they would not stay, except to drop coin at the tavern and perhaps pick up supplies on their way further south.
The plains beyond stayed almost untenanted for three days until they passed two merchant trains, horses and wagons rattling and heavy with goods. Others followed, small knots of wanderers. The night came down fast, the cobalt dusk warm and still. She motioned the others away from the road, far enough that they were hidden past high stands of rock, shielded from the wind.
Jaheira caught her arm, turning her so she could look back out to the plain. She blinked into the press of the wind and said, "What am I looking at?"
"Travelers," Jaheira said, lifting her chin. "A dozen or so."
Tayna nodded. "Yes. Saw them this morning."
"Twice."
"They went past us," she said resignedly. "And now they're behind us. Wonderful."
"It may be nothing," Jaheira said.
"When was the last time it was nothing?"
"Fair point."
Sword drawn, she waited with her back against the rock and the fire behind her, the leaping flames sending the shadows roiling. When it happened – halting footfalls first and then the muttered sound of someone casting – the ambush was over fast, Anomen turning shoulder-first into the first grey-clad figure. Tayna flanked him, her sword scything low and vicious.
Afterwards, after she had made sure the mark on Imoen's arm was no worse than a long scrape, she knelt and prodded one of the dead men over onto his back.
"Hoping for a handily placed letter of introduction?" Edwin asked blandly.
"I wouldn't complain." She checked over the man's lifeless sprawl, his coinpurse and his belt and the indistinguishable plainness of his clothes, tunic and breeches and no jewelry. "The others?"
"The same," Imoen answered. "Bad luck with bandits, maybe. I'm hoping, at least."
"Maybe." She glanced across at Jaheira and read her own thoughts in the druid's face. "Let's move on, get some ground covered before midnight."
The afternoon sun was fierce, lancing down through the tall thin trees. Stiff branches broke the heat, fringed with narrow leaves, the trunks beneath silvery and crisp. After Tayna quartered the small glade – the rush of a stream to the far side, and the wind broken on the other by low rocks – she nodded to where her sister sat on watch, Minsc beside her.
She picked her way between the trees, idly following the stream. Eventually she sat, ankles crossed and her gaze vaguely on the rushing play of the water. When she heard familiar footsteps behind her, and then the creak of the branches, she grinned and waited until she heard Edwin swearing.
"Because of course you would take yourself off across a path just littered with branches, leaves, rocks and the gods know what else."
"Afternoon, Edwin. They call it the wilderness for that very reason, by the way."
"Yes, yes," he muttered. Shaking his sleeve free of where it was hooked on the edge of a branch, he sat, arranging himself beside her. He was out of his robes, she noted, the fall of his shirt disheveled from the day's walking.
"Still clear?"
"Still," he answered.
She leaned against his shoulder. "Hey, Edwin?"
"Mmm?"
"When you came across to the Sword Coast, year ago? Did you come this way?"
"No, not through Tethyr." He hesitated, his whole frame coiling as if he was not sure quite what to say, as if he was wrestling with the words and what they might mean. "West from Thay. Across Sembia, among other places."
She heard the deliberately vague distance in his voice, in the way he grated the words out. "Look, I –"
"Yes, yes. You want to have me extrapolate, elucidate and otherwise open my thoughts to you about every nuanced step of my journey from Thay to the Sword Coast, encompassing all that it entails."
"No, actually," Tayna told him sharply. "All I did was ask you a question."
His mouth clicked shut. "Yes."
"And, you know, if you don't want to say any more than you already have, that's fine."
"That's fine," he echoed, as if the words tasted strange.
"What?"
Edwin shrugged. "Nothing."
For long moments she sat there beside him, waiting until the tension in him slackened, until he leaned the side of his head against the top of hers.
"You're an idiot," she said very gently. "Tell me anything you want. And anything you don't want to say, just don't say it. That simple."
"Nothing is simple."
"For now, it's that simple. Besides, I know you."
"You do, do you," he said.
"Very well."
Resignedly Edwin wrapped an arm around her. "Perhaps."
"Argumentative wizard."
Tayna turned her face against his collar, smiling when she felt his breathing quicken. She reached up without looking, her hand brushing his chin, sliding across his stubble.
He growled and caught her wrist. "Stop mishandling me."
"And how would you prefer I handle you?"
He shifted so he could look down at her, dark eyes hooded. Wordlessly, he guided her hand to the side of his neck. As silently he kissed her, seizing her mouth with his until her lips felt bruised and aching.
She murmured something against his mouth, asking, wanting, and when he nodded, she unbuckled her sword, the familiar weight of belt and blade hitting the ground. Together they heaved her breeches off and his down and desperately she sank onto him, the breath locking up in her throat. Hands clamped onto his shoulders, she eased her pace, each rocking motion of her hips mercilessly slow.
"You are doing that deliberately," he accused.
"Perhaps."
When he arched up under her, he stifled a shuddering groan into her shoulder.
"I win," she told him, and kissed his forehead.
"Not yet you haven't," he muttered. Breathing hard, he eased back slightly, his hands smoothing over the slight swell of her hips. He touched her, his thumb circling against the wet heat between her legs. "Oh, no," he said, when she tried to roll off him. "You are staying where you are."
Her thighs shook, and she gulped out a laugh. "That's evil."
He drew her closer, his other hand cupping over the back of her neck, tangling in her hair. "Your definition of evil is perhaps the most nonsensical I have ever encountered."
"Be quiet."
She did not last long, not with the teasing awareness of him under her, of the way he was breathing against her mouth, breathing her in. The wrenching pleasure of her climax jolted through her, fast and dizzying and she ended up sprawled uselessly against his chest.
After she finally dragged her head up, she grinned. "Edwin. You have leaves in your hair."
"What?" He swiped at the unkempt mess of his hair. "Where?"
"Here. And yes, you look entirely uncivilized." Still grinning, she leaned forward and tidied the loose black strands. "Actually rather suits you."
Edwin sighed. "No, it does not. It is neither fitting nor appropriate. Besides, I have no wish to end up smelling like I live in this forest rather than that I am simply traveling through it."
"You know, wizard, for someone who's wandered for the better part of three years or so, you are still infuriatingly finicky."
Tayna woke, her heart thundering. Her hair was clinging to her lips, she realized, and someone's arms were locked around her shoulders, holding her in place. She let her eyes close before she said, "Oh, shit. Sorry."
"Oh, no," Edwin answered haughtily. "I happen to enjoy being kicked out of my sleep. As you well know, my days are short, slow and boring and thusly I pray for my nights to be jarred by excitement."
"I said sorry." Slowly she became aware of the low sloping angles of the tent walls around them, softened by the flutter of a lantern. She swallowed, the inside of her mouth dry and scraping. "Maybe this whole actually sleeping together thing isn't working. Not the other parts. The other parts are fine."
"Tell me what you saw."
"A city," she said, her voice ringing hollow. "A city aflame. Besieged. Something about – I don't know. It smelled of Bhaal there, his blood. The way it smelled in his realm."
"What does it mean?"
"How should I know?" Disgruntled, she added, "Could mean anything. Could just be a bad dream."
"No," he said, his voice abruptly severe. "You have shouted your way out of dreams for the past seven nights. It is like it was before Suldenessellar. Before Baldur's Gate."
"Yes," she muttered. For long moments she let herself breathe, let herself feel the welcome pressure of his arms around her, his hands over her wrists. "It was a place I'd never seen before. Not in books, not in any other dream."
"A real place?"
"Possibly." She fought for the whispers of it, the shuddering detail, half-lost amid the memory of her own blood, thrumming beneath her skin. "Somewhere warm. High walls on fire and catapults outside. Gods. I don't know. I had it all and now it's not making sense."
"And have your dreams ever made sense, entirely?"
"No, except when Queen Ellesime strolled on into them. Oh, and that time I dreamed that Imoen and me had snuck into one of the cellars at Candlekeep and gotten away with stealing as much cider as we could carry. Which we did in fact, once or twice."
Edwin snorted. "Charming."
She eased herself away from him slightly, her shirt still stuck to her back and the collar damp with sweat. "I meant what I said. If this is – look, I wouldn't want to be kicked awake nearly every night either."
He looked at her, his eyes dark and slyly speculative. "Of all the terrible trials I have been forced to undertake in your company, occasional broken sleep is hardly at the forefront. (Though we may have to do something about the way she somehow manages to aim straight for the shins, damnable creature.)"
"You're so sweet," she told him archly.
Edwin scowled. "Keep that up and I will demonstrate just how catastrophically wrong you are in your assumption."
"Yes, I'm quaking in my boots. Or I would be, if I was wearing them."
Later she crawled her way outside and into the pearl grey dawn. Still blinking, she tightened her sword belt. She discovered Imoen as bleary-eyed, perched on a rock and gazing out into the trees.
"You're up early," Imoen said lightly.
"Couldn't sleep. Also something about leaning deliberately on Edwin's spellbook when he was trying to read," she said. "That was his opinion, at least."
"Just the one opinion? I'm shocked."
"He's not that -" Tayna said, before she stopped herself and groaned. "Oh, gods. Hit me if I do that again."
"What?"
"Try to explain away how much he likes the sound of his own voice."
Imoen laughed. "Got it bad, have we?"
"No," she retorted. She hopped onto the rock beside her sister. Briskly she surveyed the trees, mantled with mist. Twisting, she glanced behind them, across the small clearing, to where the trees clustered around low sloping rocks. "Im?"
Imoen must have heard her flat, wary tone, because she stiffened and said, "What do you need?"
"Quietly and quickly. Get the others up and out here."
Already moving, Imoen slithered off the rock. "What do you see?"
"More new friends. Eight of them and closing on us fast."
"On my way."
As soon as she heard Imoen's footsteps quicken, she was back on the ground, her sword rattling free of its scabbard. Blurred between the trees, she could see them, all of them clad in the same featureless grey. They moved fast and deft, as if they already knew the terrain well. Sword clasped in one hand, Tayna gauged the distance to the first man, counting his loping strides as he crossed through the treeline.
She heard the others behind her, Jaheira barking at Anomen to flank her and push forward. Minsc reached her first, the bulk of his shoulder shielding hers.
"Them again?" he asked.
Tayna laughed. "Guess they had friends."
She moved first, launching herself at the first man, her blade scything his aside. She let the impetus carry her, driving one elbow into his chest. When he staggered, his sword dipping again, she slashed his throat open. He toppled easily, the bright spill of his blood coppery and thick when she breathed.
She turned, hurtling back across the clearing. Shoulder-first she ploughed into another, staggering him before she kicked his ankles out from under him. The downward arc of her sword was joined by Jaheira's spear, pinning him. Breathing hard, Tayna straightened up, glancing across to the others before she counted the dead men, curled on the ground.
"We're all alright?"
Imoen nodded. "But these are – who are they? They're not carrying anything past a weapon each and what they're wearing."
"Coincidence?" Edwin suggested acidly.
"As if you believe in coincidence of any sort," Tayna retorted.
"Then they are following you," he said. "You and your sister and whatever they believe you are both capable of."
"They have to come from somewhere," Anomen said steadily. "Or be sent from somewhere, or answer to someone."
"That is a great deal of useless somethings you are bandying about with witless regard for critical thought," Edwin muttered, almost under his breath.
Tayna knelt, her gaze fixed on the dead man, on the others behind him. "Whoever they are, there's a fair few of them so far."
"So if we agree they're searching," Jaheira said.
"Then we hunt," Tayna replied.